I find myself startled (all over again) by how badly our political system is dealing with Our Only President. The magnificent genius of our system is that it expects that sometimes a bad man will get elected, to some office or other, and there are several layers of what we learned to call “checks and balances”, but which are more accurately simply checks (in the hockey sense), and which could be better taught as protections or baffles.
First of all, within the Executive itself, there ought to be several people who see it in their own interest to baffle a bad President. This has often happened, most recently (I think) when Ronald Reagan’s administration took over the onerous task of governing from his increasingly feeble shoulders. In part, they may do so out of patriotism and whatnot, but largely, the system encourages those men to guard their reputations closely, and to draw their skirts aside from the tar leaking from a bad barrel. This administration seems to be populated nearly entirely with people who have no political ambitions beyond 2008. They will move very happily to private business, lobbying, organized crime, prison or all four, and strangely enough, their association with lies, fascism and corruption probably won’t hurt them in their careers.
I’ll say it again—people who work for this administration have willingly associated themselves with lies, fascism and corruption, and have every reason to believe that they will profit by it. No points for James Madison.
Second, there’s the Legislature, which is presumed to have not only ambitious people unaligned with the President’s faction, who will attempt to baffle even a good President as far as their constituents will let them, but ambitious people of the President’s faction, who because they are ambitious, will, like their putative brethren in the Executive, draw their skirts aside from etcetera etcetera etcetera. When the President is (a) bad and (2) unpopular, and furthermore is unpopular because of the failures, ambitious people make political hay by baffling them. Except, for some reason, they haven’t. And I’m not sure why. It’s true, to some extent, that few people have constituents who are demanding that their representatives act as a baffle to the President, but—why not? I mean, is it possible that the chunk of voters who think I dislike our President because of all the failures, but I certainly don’t want my Congressman or Senator to interfere with him in any way is large enough to court? Furthermore, there have been actual observable instances of legislators losing their jobs because they failed to act as a baffle. Not many, no, but surely enough to give people pause, yes?
Because the third group to act as a baffle to the President is the American People, making their voices heard in the legislatures, and in public houses and libraries and street corners. No, they can’t actually change Presidential policy, but they can bring an enormous amount of influence to bear on the people who should be acting as baffles and are not. True, it takes a while between elections, but the representatives should be reacting faster than that, if they want to keep on the good side of the voters.
The last group within the system is the Judiciary, which has done some actual baffling over the last six years, but less and less as time has passed, and which has certainly not stopped the worst of it, nor can the Judiciary be expected to hold the door shut by itself. Don’t get me wrong, here—I’m aware that the Judiciary has been pretty bad, has allowed a lot of bad things to happen and actively participated in others. They have, however, at the same time, stood up to Our Only President more directly, clearly and effectively than any other group, when they have done it at all.
So, what’s going on? Why is the system failing? Or is it working, but very slowly, so that we can’t see it yet? The thing that startled me, by the way, was the bizarre matter of revising FISA, where the Democratic-led legislature essentially allowed an unpopular President to bully them into making very bad law. I am furious, of course, as are many of us within the Party. I’d even say most of us within the Party think it’s a bad law, although some are more furious than others. If the system were working properly, that would potentially have consequences for the Party leadership. But that’s one thing—even outside our Party, the new provisions do not have massive popular support. Why were Republican legislators willing to tie themselves so closely to Our Only President and his unpopular and failed cabal of crooks and incompetents to win passage of a lousy bill without popular support? Why were the crooks and incompetents themselves pushing for this bill? What the hell is going on?
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.
Hypotheses, in no particular order:
1) Corruption — lots of dirty money sloshing around
B) Blackmail — lots of warrantless wire-tapping going on
� Cowardice — lots of spinelessness among our elected officials
2) Cluelessness — Left Blogovia seems to know the U.S. Constitution and the various powers apportioned to the various branches of government, but many of our Legislators seem pretty much in the dark
C) Complacency — lots of people in government seem to be unable to believe that we are all that far outside politics as usual. (Telling the difference between complacency, cluelessness, and cowardice can be difficult in diagnosing the problem)
*) Political Idiocy — lots of “Washington Insiders” think the Democrats can’t afford to be seen as “weak on terror” by not assisting the criminal Executive branch in shredding the Constitution. They are fools and knaves.
D) Access to State Secrets — They know more than we do and how serious the threats to The Homeland are, so we should trust them. I don’t buy it.
What hypotheses did I miss?
I didn’t post demonic possession, because while that could explain Our Only President, I don’t think it can explain the state of the Legislature.
I thought you were on public sewer?
We have some fundamental problems which are interfering with the checks and balances. (1) Since Nixon, we have uncoupled prosecution of federal-level political figures from wrongdoing. There’s no longer a significant correlation there, so bad people actually run less risk of being prosecuted for wrongdoing by becoming federal-level political figures, while good people run more risk of being prosecuted for no real reason by becoming federal-level political figures. Oddly, this does not improve the quality of our federal-level political figures. (2) Again since Nixon, journalism was replaced by the scandal cycle. Like prosecution, press persecution of federal-level political figures has become uncoupled from wrongdoing. (3) The cost of political campaigns has become too high a barrier for most populist candidates to cross, even at the simple Congressional level. When a candidate must be beholden to funded interests in order to be viable, there’s no reason for an incumbent to fear a populist challenger who will actually represent the hopes of a majority of voters.
The baffle system for our government should rest on a solid tripod of fear of prosecution for wrongdoing, fear of public exposure for wrongdoing, and fear of voter retaliation. Take out one leg, and the system becomes visibly unbalanced. Take out all three legs, and you get the new FISA law.
… and the funded interests have a legal mandate against public accountability.
i haven’t yet changed my mind that madison was assuming land and agriculture would remain a or the source of wealth. the ability to gain and keep wealth without leaving the upper class’s company — the concept of jobs instead of trades — i think democracy itself works best when people have concrete needs. when all the players can choose whether to negotiate or jump ship to another line of work, it guarantees bad faith talks.
I agree with Chris’s assessment, Michael’s analysis, and The Blogger Formerly Known as Hyacinth’s assupmtions (from Madison).
So, what’s to be done?
The culture of consumerism that so many people are willing to invest in (because it’s easy and comfortable) encourages folks not to participate in the democratic process, beyond watching it unfold on CNN. ‘Cause CNN is way more entertaining than CSPAN, within certain tolerances of the variable “entertaining.”
An aside: Has anyone but me noticed that The Right seems to have replaced political commentators with comedians? Coulter, Beck, Limbaugh, Liddy – these are the people shaping public opinion of politics, because people are so accustomed to being manipulated that they (most of them) don’t notice it’s happening, anymore. The Left should enlist similar figures (George Carlin leaps to mind) as political commentators to be unapologetically liberal, and even offensively liberal. Get them shows on CNN, not on HBO.
Anyway, given that complacency has been made the order of the day, and that The People are comfortable being manipulated, The Right seems to want to institute a fascist autocracy. It may be that this is the only form of government that will allow
The CattleThe People their comforts, anymore, which would be Sad.I don’t know that with the current owners of the media channels, actual journalism will be encouraged, so I don’t know that the cycle of complacency will be broken.
Any suggestions?
peace
Matt
It seems, also, that the office of Republican President (a constitutionally similar office to that of Democratic President) has taken on a metaphorical unity with the Republican Party as a whole, such that association with a Republican President is a source of power for Republicans, regardless of the substance of that association. Party loyalty and its rewards outweigh almost any possible stains on the hem.
Similarly, the office of Republican President has a metaphorical unity in this country with the exercise of force by the state — Ruby Ridge and Waco caused so much outrage in part because the Democratic President does not. There may not be a majority of people who agree with how that force is being exercised at the moment, but to argue against the Republican President’s use of force is to argue against the forceful power of the state itself.
That is a really interesting point, Dan. I overheard a drunken conversation some time ago, during which I came to understand that some people think of Democrats as “the abortion party,” and refuse to vote for them, accordingly, despite the fact that they find Republicans repugnant. The person in question, consequently, votes Libertarian, which simply makes no sense to me, but there it is.
What if we went back to the Winner-gets-President, Loser-gets-Vice-President system? And then the Constitution is amended specifically to make the President the War-President, and the Vice President the Peace-President. If people want peace, the Democrat is made to win the election, and if they want war, they can elect the Republican. If, during the term, hostilities erupt or subside, the powers shift.
Problem solved. I’ll be in my trailer, if I’m needed.
peace
Matt
dear matt hulan,
hapa is not a blogger.
yours,
hapa’s mom
It’s too late to really jump in here, but to respond to some of the more serious points … the thing that I find shocking is that the system hasn’t (yet, he said hopefully) bounced back from all this. Our populace is not, on the whole, substantially more ignorant, corrupt, vicious or short-sighted than it was a century ago (he said hopefully); Mr. Madison’s Constitution doesn’t rely on the voters to be angels any more than it does the politicians. And many polls seem to show that we reject (largely) a lot of the silliness that distracts us, the persecution of the innocent, etc, etc, but that we don’t expect that to have any actual effect in the governing of the country. Or perhaps I’m wrong.
I do think that Dan P has a point that our expectations of a Republican President are so different from those of a Democratic President (in the last few decades) that they may as well be different offices. Perhaps that has something to do with this whole business, or perhaps it doesn’t.
Thanks,
-V.
Dear Hapa’s Mom,
My mistake, I’m sure. Can he/she/it come out to play in the blogosphere, occasionally? If he/she/it has eaten all his/her/its peas?
Thanks.
Sincerely,
Matt Hulan
What Constitutional system do you wish to return to? Mr. Madison’s Constitution relies on the people being more powerful than the government, on the states being more powerful than the federal government, on the legislative branch having similar power to the executive branch (and both having far less power than today), and many other systemic differences.
Mr. Madison’s Constitution assumed that most people would not have a vote, that the federal government would be financially dependent on state handouts, that the level of representation would be much smaller, and that the (larger) states would have veto power over most federal actions. It’s entirely backwards today.